1897
John Chamberlain Roe. "Each year as I grow wiser I think more highly of John Chamberlain Roe. He was a scholar and a gentleman," a classmate has written. One of the recollections of Merrill Boyd makes clear both characteristics. "During my junior year I elected a course in French under him, but before undertaking the course, I went to him and got permission to be excused from reading the French in the class. However, he forgot it and a few days later reprimanded me very sharply for my inability to read in a manner which satisfied his sensitive ears. At the end of the hour I went up and expostulated with him, and he expressed himself as willing to apologize to the class for the grievous error, if I cared to have him do so. This represented such good will on his part that I had no further trouble in this course."
Dr. Roe was young and was so much a scholar and a gentleman that he did not fully understand the crudity of Dartmouth students in 1894. I am ashamed to recall the time when, with Bobby Bacon '96, I enticed a South European peddler to throw open the door of the Modern Language room at Dartmouth Hall and ask for second-hand clothes. Johnny Roe met him at the door, and in the appropriate foreign tongue, explained the situation. Both gentlemen bowed low to each other, apologized for the misunderstanding, and parted with great good will. The laugh was not on the professor. I once saw Roe for pure joy rolling snowballs on the campus. I felt that he was demeaning himself, for no members of Dartmouth's senior faculty had had any recreation since they were mustered out in Washington in 1865.
Our class corrupted the song, "Roll, Jordan, Roll," sang it with luster, and still sing it: "Roe, Johnny Roe, I want to go to Heaven when I die To see old Johnny Roe."
I do not know whether John Chamberlain Roe still lives or not, but one of my reasons for wanting to go to Heaven is to express to him the appreciation that I should have expressed in 1894.
James Fairbanks Colby. In the enfeebled days of the dying century Dartmouth students showed little respect for upright posture, good grooming, and suitable clothes respectfully worn. The word "dude" has now almost passed from ready use, but it was in those years an expressive word. It seemed a designation more appropriate for James Fairbanks Colby than for Professor Hitchcock, or other very virile members of the faculty.
Professor Colby taught the required course in Constitutional Law. This course was required of all students, since Webster, 1801, was Dartmouth's especial pride, and Dartmouth's aspiration was to produce diplomats and statesmen. I think that the course failed of its purpose, for after the political constellation, John Barrett, George Moses, Sherman Burroughs, and John Bartlett, the material was poor.
Another reason may have been that Professor Colby was more of a lawyer than a statesman. The course was one of precedents and legal cases. I do not recall that it had any intimate connection with Congress and the Supreme Court in 1897, or with the diplomatic problems that were then troubling Europe. Perhaps we were better off not to know about these things, but instead to have a full knowledge of "Hornbuckle v. Toombs, 18 Wall. 648." The course before others emphasized accurate expression and orderly memorization and arrangement. The professor discouraged the happy classmate who would substitute vocal fluency and a general discursive knowledge for terse clarity. Even Blanchard and Pillsbury would look deflated when Colby would listen impassively to irrelevancies and then remark, "My query was," and would repeat his former question.
Well, if the course did not make statesmen, it did its part to produce lawyers and good ones. There were twenty-two in our graduating class of ninety-three.
In this course I only merited and received a mark of 65. This is the reason why affairs in Washington confuse me now.
Marvin Davis Bisbee. It seems impossible, but in 1897 and for some years before, Dartmouth had a college librarian who actually met literate students face to face and gave out books from the library desk.
Marvin Davis Bisbee had been a clergyman. At the college, in addition to his days in the library, he for a time gave the course in Religion which ex-president Bartlett later took over. There is a tradition also that he gave an embarrassing course of lectures on Human Behavior, but this course was before our time, and it is reported that after the professor had warned against the sirens of Lebanon and White River Junction he ran out of material.
Professor Bisbee was a round, comfortable man. His strong face was entirely hidden by a complete set of whiskers. He was a scholar, he knew books, and he loved literature. He had chosen students for library assistants. Harry Hardy was one of them. Bisbee had a human philosophy that was mildly cynical and wholly delightful.
He was better in cataloguing than in gardening. He wished his sportive morning glories to screen his porch, and so he trained each one by an encouragingly taut guiding string. It rained, the string shrank, the young plants were pulled from their roots, and hung dangling, as did the faithless maidens on whom Odysseus took vengence, "Their feet twitched a little, but not long."
The professor once told us how, after a night's exhaustive study, he went to bed at eleven, intending to arise at four. He slept. He woke with a guilty start. He dressed and went to his desk and then found that he had slept but thirty minutes. We "wooded up," for such devotion seemed to us impossible and not worthy of encouragement.
Bailey's health is not good but his courage is indomitable. On account of physical weakness he has retired from a life's work as public school teacher. For many years he has been head of the Science Department of the Brockton High School, and now has retired to his home town of Hinsdale, N. H., where in a well-kept white house on the main street he welcomes passing classmates. In addition to his pension as a Massachusetts teacher he has a Spanish War pension for his service in 1898. He has a garden, a museum, and stamps. He writes poetry and has a happy wife.
For years it has been hard to keep in touch with Day. He is a physician with practice in New York state. For some years he was reported from Brooklyn, and more recently from Buffalo. The secretary of the Buffalo Alumni Association, on request, tried to find him at an organization which he had been serving as medical consultant. However, Day had recently left without a forwarding address.
For some months Ben Marshall has been serving as emergency pastor for the historic Faith Congregational church in Springfield, Mass. Classmate Erdix Smith has proposed to cheer Ben by appearing in his congregation, but has hesitated, since through disuse he has forgotten the technique of church attendance and public devotional attitudes.
New Hampshire maintains an information department in the state building at the Eastern States Exposition grounds in Springfield. This bureau has been in charge, throughout the summer, of Herbert M. Thyng. Tourists and explorers have found Thyng's knowledge most satis- factory.
In a fine old mansion in Amherst, N. H., lives the retired schoolmaster, Charles A. Tracy. He gives time and effort to all town interests, church, and community. He has also legislative aspirations, and his friends hope that again he will serve his state by a winter's work in Concord.
Secretary, 74 Newport Ave., West Hartford, Conn. THE DARTMOUTH FACULTY, 1893-97, AS SEEN BY OBSERVANT SENIORS.
